Reset karma for everyone. Your top karma people abuse their authority and you don't even notice. If a post is flagged, show who flagged it and for how long.

High karma users don't gain any special authority or privilege.

There are a few places in the code that consider karma but IIRC it's never more than 500 (the downvote threshold). It's actually on my list to add more goodies for higher levels - maybe something like linkifying URLs in user profiles - but it would not have anything to do with authority on HN itself. We want the best comments and the best arguments to 'win', not skew things in insiders' favor.

What makes you think karma is anything other than a popularity contest rather than the best argument? I've had comments downvoted to negative land without anyone commenting on my comment. If someone can't be bothered to state what they find wrong with a comment, then they shouldn't downvote. Such downvotes are basically trying to silence the speaker instead of addressing what they are saying.

I don't know about your comments, but if I see one which is easy to debunk by looking it up then I just downvote. There's no reason to be less lazy than the original poster just to prove them wrong.

> one which is easy to debunk

Yes, and I also do it, but very rarely and as an exception (and I am strongly in the position of "sniping weakens the system").

The issue is that it is possible that the censor may have misunderstood and missed something that was not clearly expressed.

> something that was not clearly expressed

I'd argue that in this case it's also in the interest of the community to downvote, since the comment adds more noise than it contributes to the discussion. In the end it's a ranking; if other comments are better worded and clearer, everything else being equal, they deserve to be higher up.

Just a guess - you may be downvoted not for exactly what you are saying, but how you are saying it. You may have valid criticism, but being rude is not met with welcome on HN (for good reasons).

I don't think that.

You said "We want the best comments and the best arguments to 'win', not skew things in insiders' favor." But only those that get to a certain threshold apparently.

"We want" means it's a goal to aspire to, not that it's already the case.

Not sure what you mean about thresholds.

Passing a threshold doesn't do anything for your own comments.

You haven't addressed publicizing who flagged a post. For instance, who flagged the first post on Bob Lee's death? How long was it kept flagged? Who removed the flag?

How would one know if flagging wasn't abused? I've had comments flagged that get unflagged a day later. Were there any consequences for the person who flagged the post?

Sorry I missed that point. We wouldn't publicize flags any more than what people upvoted or downvoted. That data is quite personal.

I disagree. It is a community, we want it to be a community, and we work hard to make it more of a community.

There's a fear here of the "community" on the part of you and HN. You may not realize it, but you treat it at least somewhat in an adversarial way. That cannot ever be a healthy community.

Part of the issue is HN is too broad. Whatever goes here, really. Communities that work are focused on specific things.

So trust you that it doesn't get abused? Nope.

I don't think I said anything about trust? No doubt it does get abused. We do what we can to counteract that.

> Your top karma people abuse their authority and you don't even notice.

What authority do 'top karma people' have?

I have 25,772 karma, for what it's worth, and you have 2. I don't think there's anything I can do here on HN that you can't do?

(Hah, and I just noticed that my account is two days older than dang's!)

You can downvote and flag, they can’t.

Well, the limits for that are 500 and 30 karma. But you technically have a point as 2718i314 (the user I replied to) doesn't have enough karma to reach those thresholds.

If you don't like the community here, why do you stick around?

FWIW I'm pretty sure I've flagged fewer than 100 comments in my decade or so on HN. I strongly suspect people with a lot of karma are much more likely to post a comment in response or maybe downvote something than flagging it.

Also, a lot of the high karma accounts got there by posting links, or just by grinding their way up by posting a lot of comments, or because they're 'famous' for something. Karma doesn't represent any sort of unusual power or authority. If you think it does you're reading too much into it.

I've vouched for more comments than I ever flagged.

What authority?

It doesn't take much karma to vote or flag. Well under 100 points IIRC. Past that point, having more karma has no effect on what you can do on the site.

Correct. Flagging takes 30 (well, 31) and downvoting takes 500 (well, 501). After 250 you get to set your topcolor. I think that's about it for now.

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